Church and state

Sever them

Religion should have a smaller official role in Britain, not a greater one

ROWAN WILLIAMS, the Archbishop of Canterbury, primate of the Church of England and of the 80m-strong Anglican Communion worldwide, is a mild-mannered man. Yet it is no surprise that he provoked outrage when he suggested on February 7th that the adoption of elements of Islamic sharia law in Britain was “unavoidable” if social cohesion was to be fostered (see article). The archbishop revived a debate that has exercised great minds for millennia: where to draw the dividing line between church and state. And he got it wrong.

Most European countries that are Christian by inheritance have seen a decline in traditional religious observance. Many have opened their doors to devout Muslim minorities. The result is often a confrontation between Christianity and other faiths, and between religious values and secular ones.

In Britain's case, three extra complications exist. First, more than anywhere except perhaps America, the law is an integral part of Britain's sense of self. The Magna Carta is a founding myth. When defining “Britishness”, the rule of law and fair play are among the first things Britons mention to pollsters. So suggestions that entire groups should be able to contract out of bits of the law do not go down well. The archbishop did not say quite that, of course. He is right to point out that plenty of legal matters are already decided outside the established court system, some of them in sharia tribunals. But he called the principle of one law for everybody “a bit of a danger”.

A second strain in relations between church and state in Britain is that the government relies increasingly on religious and other “third-sector” groups to help it deliver social services. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it has highlighted conflicts between religious aims and public policy. Some state-financed “faith schools”, for example, are wrongly allowed to take religion into account when selecting their students (and headmasters). State-subsidised Catholic adoption agencies have refused to place children with gay adoptive parents, though that sort of discrimination is now illegal. The trend in these and other cases is to reduce the room for large-scale religious exceptionalism.

The third complication is that England has an established church whose authority has been intertwined with the state's for five centuries. The powers of the Church of England have been trimmed and privileges have been granted to other religions. Yet although a mere 1.7m people attend its services regularly, its special status endures. The queen is its head; Parliament approves its prayer book; and only last year did the prime minister relinquish the right to select its bishops, 25 of whom sit in the House of Lords.

Faced with this anomaly, the archbishop proposes to expand the privileges of all religions. It would be better instead to curtail the entitlements of his one. It makes no sense in a pluralistic society to give one church special status. Nor does it make sense, in a largely secular country, to give special status to all faiths. The point of democracies is that the public arena is open to all groups—religious, humanist or football fans. The quality of the argument, not the quality of the access to power, is what matters. And citizens, not theocrats, choose.

Cut it free

Disestablishing the Church of England does not mean that it has no public role to play. America's founders said there should be no established religion, but religion shapes public debate to a degree that many in Europe find incomprehensible. Let religion compete in the marketplace for ideas, not seek shelter behind special privileges. One law for all, with its enlightened insistence on tolerance and free speech, is not a “bit of a danger”. It is what underwrites the ability of all religions to go about their business unhindered.